New data has shed light on the extent of US military support for Israel’s war machine over the past seven decades.
A recent report shows that the United States provided Israel with over 70,000 weapons — aircraft, ground vehicles, missiles and bombs — via military aid between 1950 and 2022.
Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign military financing, with most of that aid coming in the form of weapons grants, according to an Axios analysis of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Arms Transfers Database. The analysis was released on Wednesday.
“I think it’s a safe assumption to say that US weapons are being used extensively in the current Israeli operations in Gaza,” Elias Yousif, a US arms transfer expert at the Stimson Center, told Time earlier this month.
So far this year, the report says that the US has provided Israel with at least 16 types of weapons. However, the type and number of weapons are not publically known due to the US secrecy about the shipments.
Experts have said these American weapons are likely being used extensively by Israeli forces against Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel is the single largest recipient of US foreign aid since World War II.
Since the Nakba, the US has provided Israel with $260 billion in economic and military funding.
The report came amid a war that the Israeli regime has been waging against the people of Gaza since October 7, which has so far claimed the lives of more than 15,500 Palestinians. The regime has also intensified its attacks against the West Bank since the onset of the war.
